The van loops lazy figure eights in the parking lot, tossing me side-to-side in its backseat, while the Swap and Spit Girls spit and swap my cock. My mind re-lives this morning’s fight with Amanda. The van flies into a curve too fast and teeth scrape my shaft, ripping me back into the Now, and I remember to moan the way you’re expected to when a redhead and a blonde are throwing a rainbow party in your lap. I’m not convincing.
The director says, “Cut.”
Thank Christ. Me, shooting smut in the back of a speeding van with two white girls–bald cunts, panties around their ankles–is a game of “Pin the Felony on the Negro” waiting to happen.
While the girls wipe their mouths and re-apply their lip gloss, Dana, the director, explains the rest of the scene will conclude in her compound.
Today’s scene is a reverse pickup. For the part we just filmed, I’m an Armani-clad executive out for a stroll when some girlies in a van skid to a stop next to me and fling open the door. Instead of baiting with a puppy, it’s hiked-up skirts and glistening pussies. I drop my briefcase, dive in, and the car screeches off.
Tracy, the redhead, sops up the puddle of da-glo drool in my lap with a paper towel while the blonde, whose name I forgot, tucks me back into my suit pants, but I stop her before a zipper mishap occurs.
Perfume, Amanda’s, coats the inside of my nose…probably from this morning. When I’m together, I call her. It rings and rings. No answer. I regret this morning…What I’d give for another chance to do it all over again…
#
I sit on the sofa. Dana sets up the lights and goes off somewhere. I hear Tracy and the blonde in the bathroom freshening their makeup, and then their pussies with douche. Right now is when I wash up and take a pre-scene piss, but I decide to wait until the girls are done. While I’m alone I call Amanda’s cell again…busy signal. I close my eyes…and the toilet flushes but I don’t hear clicking heels, so they’re not done…
…highschool bathroom…where I lost my virginity…Moonlight Sonata echoes off the tile…
I push open a stall. She is there.
The blonde girl who took my virginity…The gossip about her is, she only does things with black boys, but I don’t know why and nobody will explain it to me…She lifts her skirt and spreads her lips and pees on the floor…The stream splashes off the tile…Hot spraylets of salty piss pellet my lips. Steam rises from the floor, filling the bathroom.
Moans…
…I open my eyes to a stiff dick and the extreme urge to pee, so I run to Dana’s bathroom. Dream-like smoke fades from my consciousness as I laser-pee a hole through the back of the toilet. I’m rock hard, so this takes some gymnastics.
When I return to the set the girls are rubbing their pussies.
Dana says, “Action.”
#
…and I feel my bones sink into a sofa after the blonde gets up from riding me cowgirl, and my eyes follow Blondie’s ass as she walks away toward the edge of visibility.
Fading…
Fading, as Tracy lowers herself onto my rod and drapes her arms around my neck.
Tracy’s mouth shapes the words, I’m next, then blossoms into a smile. Hands from behind me pull my shoulders down…It’s Blondie. She straddles my face…
Blondie sits…
Darkness.
#
It’s after the scene and Tracy and I sit on a bed. I rub her shoulders. She turns and kisses me.
Would things be any easier with a girl who’s also in the business?… I mean, seriously, could you handle it if Amanda went off to suck some mope’s cock?…Coming home with dick on her breath every day to pay the bills?…And kissing me?…That flake of dried come on her ass that she missed in the shower?…Shit, how much better would your life look if you weren’t in the business?
Tracey bends over. I insert in her pussy.
What would your life look like if you never met Amanda?…There wouldn’t be one…She saved you too many times to count…Jesus, what are you doing? You’re such a piece of shit. Your entire life is a failure and your not smart enough to break the cycle…not man enough…put your .45 in your mouth and be done with it…Amanda’s life would look better, that’s for sure…But don’t do it at home…can’t let her find you…But…if you just disappear she’ll think you left her and that would only hurt her further…It’s never too late to be a better man, Erik…
Tracy comes. I roll off her, get dressed, and drive home.
#
Amanda should be back from work already but the house is dark and the only sound is the ticking of the kitchen clock. Still smell her perfume, though. I grab a bottled water from the fridge and sit on the bed and kick off my shoes. I strip down, lie back, and listen to time, the betrayer of lives, tick away from the kitchen…
…and I’m standing before a desk with a Newton’s cradle…those steel balls in constant conflict with one another, crashing time…
click-click-click–
Behind the desk hangs a mirror in a gilded frame. On the right side of the desk, a window with vertical blinds runs the length of the wall. The only light radiates through the blinds from the setting sun outside, which casts deep shadows, like long fingers reaching across the room.
A painting, also in a gilded frame, hangs on the wall to the left of the desk. It shows a man wearing medieval battle armor, mounted on a rearing horse with flaring nostrils. Skulls at its feet. Plumes of smoke swirl around in a crimson sky. A plaque on the frame’s bottom says, Gilles de Rais.
click-click-click–
Deep-pile carpet covers the floor that gives the sensation of sinking, slowing time with each step as I walk toward the desk.
A laptop on the desk. I walk around it to see its screen. There’s a video camera embedded into the laptop screen’s lip. The screen itself displays a document file. A contract. Scrolling down as I read, I learn the contract is an exclusive performing deal…Along with the performance contract is an agreement to have my body parts, specifically my genitals, cast and molded into sex toys…
My pulse quickens as I scroll down to the compensation section. click-click-click–
I read, my mouth dries and I have to re-read it to be sure the numbers are right. The cardboard I stuffed into my shoes as inserts to cover the holes in the soles are long since worn through, so I can fondle the soft carpet with my toes. I read my compensation again…and again. I’m on the edge of losing it, maybe even dancing, until I remember the camera in my face. I wipe my face and type my name on the space designated “signature” and click the “send” button, executing the contract.
The contract on the screen dissolves into a real-time image of me from the video camera’s point of view. The shadows cascading across my face from the window gives the appearance of bars. The combined effect of the seeing myself simultaneously in the screen in front of me, as well as reflected in the mirror behind me, renders the effect of two opposing mirrors angled in such a way that both the front and back of my head are cast into infinite regress. I swallow.
click-click-click–
Amanda’s perfume bottle sits on the desk. There’s a sensation…that whoever is on the other side of the video feed is no longer watching me…It’s as though their presence is in the room…with me.
Amanda’s voice calls me from somewhere…I stand. My feet trod in hushed footfalls across the carpet, and the world is shaking…
“…Papi, wake up.”
My bed. The kitchen clock ticks. Amanda, dressed for work, stands over me. Her hand waves something in front of my face.
She says, “Whose red hair is this?”
I take it from her. Tracey’s.
“I dunno…”
“How can you not know?”
I take my time sitting up and I rub my eyes to buy time.
“Jesus,” I say, “It’s from work. One of the girls–” I look out the window. Sunlight. “–yesterday?”
“Why are you yelling, Erik? Don’t yell at me. Never yell at me. People only yell when their guilty of something.”
“I’m not yelling, damnit. I’m just sick of these silly questions the first thing when I wake up, fucking up my mood for the day. You know damn well I go to work and–”
“How many times do I have to tell you to shower those putas off of you before you get into our bed? You smell like pussy, and you bring those…those bitches into my bed–”
“I’m sorry, okay. Christ, I sat down…and I must have fallen asleep, or…”
Amanda moves the water bottle and sits on the bed beside me. She says, “Remember, the exit date from porn is coming up.”
“I know.”
“When are you going to marry me?…Are you ever going to marry me?”
“I uh…I can’t…not while I still do porn…”
The silence. It’s a third person in the bedroom.
She says, “I already told you we can’t go on like this forever, Erik.”
She’s right. This isn’t fair to her…she deserves a lot better than me.
I say, “I know…”
“I trust you.”
…hands that look like mine knead woman’s flesh. It’s not Amanda’s…
“…yeah.”
“Well?”
“…Amanda–”
“Asshole!”
She cries. Heels click down the hall. Keys jingle. The front door slams. A car starts.
But I’m not really alone…her perfume lingers.
And that clock ticks.
I sit in bed wishing for a do-over, but I don’t know if that would do any good. I’ve been repeating the same mistakes, three girlfriends running. And I’m not any more clever today than I was yesterday…
I get dressed in my wardrobe for this morning’s scene, a suit, and I drive to the Valley.
#
I check my cellphone. It’s time, so I walk along the sidewalk. I can still hear Amanda crying in my ears, which makes me tear up, and when I wipe my nose I smell her perfume on my hand…I’m losing my girl and I’m working twice as hard for half the money I made the year before…Diminishing returns all around…Keep adding to that “Fuck You Fund” and move the fuck on….Screw that, you can turn around right now. Your car is right behind you. Get in it. Go–
A van skids to a stop next to me. The door swings open and a blonde and a redhead, skirts hiked-up, show me their pussies.
I drop my briefcase and I get in.
The door slams shut behind me.